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Audience Score

Vanilla Sky Ratings & Reviews Explanation

Vanilla Sky
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Movie Info

A remake of the Spanish film Open Your Eyes (1997), this thriller from director Cameron Crowe bears one of several discarded titles for his previous, Oscar-winning film Almost Famous (2000). Tom Cruise stars as David Ames, a womanizing playboy who finds romantic redemption when he falls in love with his best friend's girlfriend Sofia (Penelope Cruz, reprising her role from the original film). Before that relationship can begin, however, David is coaxed into a car driven by an ex-lover, Julie (Cameron Diaz), who turns out to be suicidal. Driving her car off a bridge, Julie kills herself and horribly disfigures David. Reconstructive surgery and the loving support of Sofia seem to reverse David's luck, but eerie incidents are soon making him question the reality of his existence and his control over his life, even while he is suspected of complicity in Julie's death. Vanilla Sky (2001) bears the expected Crowe trademark of an obsession with recent pop culture and particularly rock music, a more important element of the remake than the original film. That project's writer/director, Alejandro Amenabar, crafted his own supernatural hit the same year with The Others (2001), starring Nicole Kidman, the soon-to-be-ex-wife of Cruise. ~ Karl Williams, Rovi

Cameron Crowe's vinyl-collector version of "Jacob's Ladder" is a daring gamble paying off even when ambition exceeds his grasp. The subconscious can boil over with too much pop culture poured in. Keep that in mind, and it will have you at "What the hell?"

Audience Reviews for Vanilla Sky

Apr 05, 2017

I love the unique style and background Cameron Crowe brings to his films. It's like an unexpected mixture of juvenile wonder and adult innocence that appeals to me about his films. Vanilla Sky is by far his darkest feature, but also the one with the least amount of heart and pizazz. In fact, most of it is just a dull mess.
Vanilla Sky is an American remake of the 1997 Spanish film, Open Your Eyes. While I haven't seen that film yet, I can imagine it's probably a little more coherent. The remake poses some thought provoking questions and themes, including questions centered around life, death, dreams, guilt, regret, and a few other heavy hitters. But the way in which those themes are covered is less than impressive. It's a poor pun, but perhaps it isn't too surprising that this film feels very vanilla.
The performances were great all around, and became the main driving force for my dwindling interest as the film went along. You can see Tom Cruise's passion for this role dripping through the character of David. This may be the best Cameron Diaz has ever been, as the creepy but seductive Julie Gianni. And of course, Penelope Cruz is great as Sofia Serrano. As much as I love their performances, it's difficult to become invested in any of the relationships when the script isn't where it needs to be. It's a dull screenplay that feeds off your attention span, or lack thereof. By that I mean that the film is only as interesting as you make it out to be. It takes plenty of twists and turns to keep your interest enough, but what's the point of a twist if you don't really care where the characters end up?
Vanilla Sky is essentially a melodramatic soap opera disguised as a romantic mystery. I wasn't necessarily bored during the film, but it didn't grab my interest the way a film like this should have. Great acting, trippy visuals, and a classic Cameron Crowe soundtrack wasn't enough to save this dreamy picture.
+Acting
+Poses interesting questions
-But takes too many twists and turns for those questions to mean anything
-Dull script
5.6/10

Crowe is adept at the helm but that's expected. Vanilla Sky finds him in deeper, gorgeously surrealistic swirls of sub-conscious featuring Cruise and Cruz in centre stage, for the majority just making puppy eyes at each other and talking in grossly seductive riddles. Cruise's protagonist David Ames whines constantly about sub-terranean anonymity and narcissistic oblivity and his character is deeply unlikeable but that's intended, so its not as bad but it makes his "retribution" harder to digest. Crowe seems committed to doing what he wants to do but he's remaking a film that doesn't need to be remade. Abre Los Ojos ("Open Your Eyes") also featured Penelope Cruz and alot of the shots, expressions and even the costumes are identical which leaves the question, what was the actual point? What was the point of remaking Abre Los Ojos when you brought nothing new to an already over-crowded table.

"Vanilla Sky" hits some worthwhile moments and impacting emotions, but the overdrawn, over-complicated path that it takes to get to them is riddled with unnecessary turns, not to mention a questionable soundtrack. Despite solid showings from both Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz, Penelope Cruz is the one to steal the show, bringing a sense of beauty to the love interest role that is often sought after in romantic films. Her character is authentic, coming off like an actual person. Jason Lee also achieves this authenticity as Cruise's best friend, begging the question, "why hasn't Jason Lee been in more high profile roles like this". With countless twists and revelations, all of which are often hit-or-miss, "Vanilla Sky" rarely takes the easy way out and ends quite nicely, despite its lengthy diversions along the way.

A very complex, confusing, odd, and intimate film. Tom Cruise plays a rich guy named David who gets badly disfigured in a car accident. Prior to the accident, he falls in love with a woman named Sofia (played by Penelope Cruz). The best element of the film is the way it addresses dreams. In one of David's dreams, he's speaking to Sofia and something she says gives away the fact that he's dreaming. The expression on Tom Cruise's face can be described as disappointed, sad, and angered all at the same time and could only be pulled off by an actor with skill. Tom Cruise is a skilled actor, and it shows in Vanilla Sky. The story itself is very good, but should have been presented to the audience in a more clear way instead of throwing everything at us all at once. As confused as I was, Vanilla Sky still entertained me with it's excellent lead performance, great chemistry between Cruise and Cruz, and interesting portrayal of dreams.